The Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team came away with a big win on Saturday that helped the Cougars earn a first-round home playoff match this weekend.
The Cougars played strong defense and got a penalty kick from Eduardo Oliveira in the second half to top Laramie County Community College 1-0 at Landers Soccer Complex.
It has been nine years since WNCC has beaten the Golden Eagles and Saturday's win changed the seeding of the Region IX Playoffs. WNCC, who was slated to travel for the first-round, earned a home field match and the loss cost LCCC a bye and dropped them to a first-round road contest.
Guiherme Lindolfo, a defender for the Cougars, said this was a good win for the program
"It is an important win for the freshman and the sophomores because we are here to play and it is important for the next games," he said. "It was a big win because we want to defend our field. This is our field and we have fans here and it is important to play at home."
Pairings for the regional tournament first-round has WNCC hosting LCCC on Saturday at 2 p.m. with the winner advancing to the semifinals in LaJunta, Colorado, who earned the No. 1 seed.
Saturday's match was a defensive contest that resembled a chess match as each team marking up to try to score. Both teams had a number of shots in both halves with some near misses. LCCC had a total of 14 shots compared to 10 for WNCC.
Neither team could crack the net in the first half as the two defenses were playing tight. The second half was much the same.
It wasn't until under 17 minutes to play that Abdouilie Fatty took a pass and dribbled to the box and was fouled causing a penalty kick. With 16:08 to play, Oliveira took the kick and found the net on the right side for the lead.
The game was still intense as both teams battled hard. With under two minutes to play, LCCC had a couple good scoring opportunities on back-to-back corner kicks. The second corner kick resulted in a kick that was going in and WNCC goal keeper Hernan Burdiles snared the ball in and laid on the ball to preserve the win.
Oliveria had three shots in the match while Adolfo Rojas finished with two shots.
Burdiles finished with seven saves in net.
LCCC had five corner kicks to WNCC's three.
Lindolfo said this team needs to keep working hard and trusting in each other as a team to advance into the regional tournament with a win this weekend.
"We need to work hard to defend and to attack," he said. "It was the whole team and not just one person in getting (Saturday's) win. So, we need to work hard from everybody (this weekend). It is our whole group that helped. It wasn't just the goalkeeper or the person that scored the goal, it was our effort from everybody."